


A Truthful Contradiction

by marchionessofblackadder



Series: A Crown of Roses [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:17:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchionessofblackadder/pseuds/marchionessofblackadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumpelstiltskin's point of view from Selling Flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Truthful Contradiction

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I would love to read Rumplestiltskin's PoV from Selling Flowers. I get the impression he doesn't believe she cares for him and was happy to marry and sleep with him. Obviously I am stone hearted, but it has angst stamped all over it, and we haven't had enough of that (and you write pain and suffering so beautifully).
> 
> I hope you like it!

Living a life of darkness and tainted immortality had its advantages, and one of them was the distance that he had gained between himself and humanity in the process. In the many, dry and quiet years he’d preserved himself and nurtured his magic behind castle walls, he had forgotten simpler things like warmth, softness, and kindness. He had forgotten to miss them, and in the stormy northern mountains where his castle was nestled in a fertile bowl of the tallest peaks, the Dark One rather liked his nest of dust and stone.

It came as a surprise, then, that he should not only fear the things he had forgotten, but fear the one who brought them back, too. And Belle did bring them back-fearlessly, humbly, and sweetly. The few interspersed touches they had shared left her warmth behind-atop his hand, against his cheek, along his shoulders-but nothing compared to being able to return it, pressing a kiss meant for lips to the apple of her cheek and humming when her eyelashes kissed his nose. He doubted she realized it, in the brief moment they had exchanged vows in the soggy little meadow, that she sighed against his neck when he squeezed her hands, but he would hear that little sound for the rest of his life in his dreams. He would remember it, then bottle the memory to keep in his pocket so no one-not even the enchantress-could take it from him.

While he had Belle as she was, pure and sweet and whole and herself, he would savor and treasure every memory before he destroyed her. It would happen, but he would be careful for as long as he could. He would.

The steps he took were measured and counted but he was all too soon at her bedroom door, and he held his breath while he knocked. He tried in earnest not to hear the rustle of her gown or the hitch in her breathing beyond the barrier of her room, but they slipped past anyway, just before she called for him to enter. He only just remembered to tuck his hands behind his back, waving the door shut behind him while his eyes glanced about the room. It was much the same as it had been the night he’d given it to her, though it did look more lived in now, he was relieved to see.

Belle had rearranged the furniture, pushing the sitting chairs closer to the fire and the tea table closer to the one she favored that faced the door. She’d also moved the desk, now chaotically organized with several piles of books, quills, and rolls of parchment, before the windows across the room. Sitting on the cushioned bench before the lofty bed was the bride in question, blinking up at him with her wide blue eyes and smiling with more warmth and welcome than he deserved. On a true wedding night, she would have a reason to offer such a happy look to a bridegroom-someone handsome, perhaps, or at least more suited to her light spirit and gentle soul.

“Who was it?” Belle asked softly, and Rumpelstiltskin’s heart seized in a cold sweep of terror. Who was the man he would have chosen for her? On the eve of their wedding, he didn’t imagine that would be what was in her mind, but perhaps she needed such thoughts to be with...not that he would begrudge her-

“At the door?” she prompted at his lost look.

“Oh.” He finished his cautious trek into her room, remembering the flower in his hands behind his back and felt the ice melt between his ribs. “Just an old woman selling flowers.”

Belle’s face slid from a smile to a narrow eyed look of bemusement, and Rumpelstiltskin felt his scaly skin prickle with heat. No, this beautiful, sparkling bit of life was gentle, but she was not fragile. She would not break easily. “For my bride,” he said, his voice not stumbling over the word as he withdrew the flower for her. “If you’ll have it.”

Her eyes widened at the red bloom, and her pretty smile flickered like a candle’s flame along her lips as she stood to join him by the fire, taking the gift with a tremulous grasp and thanking him quietly. Seeing her shake drew his eyes to what he was not so willing to see-her paleness, the slight dampness near her hair, her crinkling eyes. It was a desire of his heart, what little could be left of it, and not the body that drew him closer to touch the cursed crown. She sunk beneath the added weight and his hand fell to her shoulder, frowning. “It hurts you.”

Whatever sighing little response she gave was lost on him until she uttered, “I’d like to be rid of it.” His mouth and throat went dry, and at her leave, he pulled away, ready to flee the room and give her more time to prepare, but then she confessed to needing his help with her gown. He could hear nothing but the ringing in his ears, only dimly aware they were holding some kind of conversation before she touched his hands. Her smile was the only brief assurance she gave him before turning to draw away both veil and hair and bare the back of the dress for him. Belle’s back was as smooth and pale as he could have ever imagined, and he forced himself to swallow and only think on the stitchings that held the dress together as he discovered the hidden laces. When he accomplished enough to let it slip away, he was waiting for her to pull away, to scamper behind the dressing screen and hide, but Belle only stood there, clutching the flower and not minding his idle toying with the embroidery of her shift. It was loose and flimsy, all white and soft underneath the gown.

Still, she didn’t move, and she seemed to like the touch, for all that it was. Hope burned in his throat, and it was on his tongue to ask if he should continue before she suddenly laid the rose on top of the mantlepiece beside them. At the same time she slid the gown down her body, and it was all she could do not to be taken with it as it hit the floor. Throat tight, Rumpelstiltskin reached for her shoulders, feeling a foreign wistfulness fill his veins to hold, to protect. He hadn’t felt such tenderness since he’d held Baelfire under one arm and his staff in the other while children were dragged off to war, and he led Belle back a step until he could hold her, then, too.

She denied her fears, as he knew she would. It took everything in him to slow his movements, the gentle stroking of her arms, to not scare her or annoy her with his touches. He placed his chin at her shoulder and felt his heart nearly fly into the rafters of the castle when she leaned her head back against his shoulder, their necks touching, nuzzling like birds keeping from the cold. He couldn’t help himself then-he should, but he couldn’t, and tried a soft kiss, just a slight pressure to the expanse of her neck near his cheek. What he began to mistake for weakness of the body at his touch was not what it seemed, because Belle was now flushed and leaning into him with more earnest, and at a second, braver kiss beneath her little ear, he held her up when she laid back against him with all the trust in the world.

“There’s more,” she whispered, before taking his hands that were safe on her hips to the top of her breasts, and Rumpelstiltskin nearly came out of his skin to feel her little fingers hold him there. But then-oh. Her lacings, of course. He eased them loose, as well, breathing quietly through his nose and digging his chin into her shoulder, resisting kissing her neck a third time until the garment fell to the ground. Too afraid to look at her, Belle-the brave woman who tripped up and down his stairs and took her tea with him-so vulnerable, he put his forehead to her shoulder and closed his eyes until she slipped her fingers through his.

“You were going to let me go.”

 _Oh, sweet girl, you have no idea_ , he thought morosely, squeezing her hands back as tightly as he dared. He would have taken her back himself, installed her upon a throne and made sure she was happy with a life of wealth and ease and love. The things she deserved. He wrapped his arms back around her, stepping close and shivering at her warmth. Her shift was nothing, and he was layered in leather, but she still warmed him to the touch as he clutched at her for strength. “Would you still have married me if you knew it took more than vows?” she asked, her voice barely catching over the stipulation.

 _Not in a thousand years_ and _Of Course I would_ jumped to his lips, but how he could express such a truthful contradiction to her, to help her understand? Well, perhaps he could earn his reward with courage, and he shut his eyes tighter, leaning up to steal a kiss from her cheek, and knew what he had to say. “Yes. If you had asked me to.”

He’d said something wrong, because she was pulling away and looking at him as if he had hurt her-or perhaps it was the crown. “But not because you would want to, even though you said you did want me.”

Did she doubt he wanted her? The very idea made him more afraid than the prospect of their wedding night altogether, and his words spilled from cracked lips, his eyes staying to her face where it was safe. “I don’t allow myself to want what is impossible. Such is folly. Wanting what I do not deserve is hard enough, Belle.”

Could she understand? She must, because she was looking at him in the way she sometimes did when time slowed between them, just before she would touch him. “I want you,” she said, and the arrow the thief had put in his chest had not felt so sudden, so painful as her words and her tears did then, seeing her struggle and fight for her own voice. “And not-not just to free myself of this stupid, stupid curse. Even if you don’t desire or love me, I care for you. I can love you-I _choose_ to love you.”

There was no curse so dark as to fight that truth. Rumpelstiltskin could taste it in the air with every breath he took hearing Belle’s passionate, desperate words pleading to him, and no matter what the enchantress had prophesied, it couldn’t be strong enough to extinguish this living, beautiful flame that was his bride. He choked on her name before they came together, before his lips met hers in a warm, firm kiss that made him feel as if he could float off the ground. Belle was tugging at his leathers and he wanted to rip the confounding, swallowing veil off and bury his fingers in her glorious hair because Belle-Belle was kissing him, Belle was loving him, and she chose it. For that moment, she chose _him_.

The moments leading up to finding the bed were blind and clumsy, and he would have laughed had Belle not tugged at his shoulders more insistently, so he ended the preamble with lifting her up onto the bed. She led him back, and he kissed her again, finally able to taste her-the warmth and earthy tea and tartness of berries and sweetness of honey. It was unlike anything he could remember, and he drank in her sighs and moans that grew in her throat, too, wondering if he could bottle up so many memories to keep.

He hadn’t been paying attention to her divesting him of his clothes, all too willing to go where she led him, until he felt her loosen his brooch. He’d forgotten about it, and broke their kiss long enough to look down at the golden spinning wheel. His own wheels helped him forget, but the object in question, the source of his only dignity as a man, cast in kings’ pittance for his adornment, draw him to a quiet place where he could remember showing Baelfire how to feed the wool, his boy on his knee and leaning his child’s hands away from the spindle.

“It’s heavy,” Belle whispered not unkindly, before setting it away on the bed. A life past and set aside.

Belle kissed him then, drawing him back to her with every pluck of her lips until her knees shifted to cradle him, and he opened his eyes to watch her. Her chest was heaving, her tiny body writhing beneath his, and his hands strayed to the pretty bows tying the white silk of her shift together. At his hesitance, she bid him go on, and he marveled at her ability to be so calm. It was not lost to him that she was a virgin-even if he had not have had to put up wards to keep the unicorns from the forest off his property, it was in Belle’s quiet pride of a noble lady, her modesty, and her newness of accepting any touch that told him what he needed to know.

Revealing her skin was something he hadn’t even let himself think about when he was alone, and he felt himself loose tightness in his shoulders as he leaned down to kiss over where her heart was beating so hard he could hear it. Belle giggled beneath him, and looking up at her with an eyebrow, expecting her to squirm away, she simply unfurled like a mermaid and smiled languidly up at him. Once she ordered him to take off his shirt, with which he complied without grumbling, he made sure her veil and hair were neither in the way nor in danger of hurting her, he set to work peeling her shift and stockings away, smiling as she shied and blushed but tried in earnest to stay still for him. He left her stockings on, feeling her cold toes with his hands.

It was during that moment that he realized she was staring at him like a cat eyeing a canary, and he gulped loud enough to pop his ears. “What is it?”

“I just…” Belle was trying not to smile, but she was sorely unable to keep a straight face. Feeling something inside begin to wither, he was shocked when she confessed, “I just like what I see.”

He closed his eyes, now as the one who was fighting a smile. _A beauty,_ he thought. _A beauty but..._

At her giggle, he reached forward and grabbed her tender ankles and sent her flat on her back, smirking down at her. If nakedness would not bother her, then it would certainly not bother him-not tonight. He would live the rest of his life pretending he had never bared his stringy arms and concave chest to her, but for now, it need not matter.

“You are a funny girl,” he told her seriously, looking down at her with more fondness than he knew he should. He was giving away all his cards, giving away the last bit of armor he had to the most powerful person in his life.

“That’s what they say,” Belle said with a sigh as he began to trace her skin. She was relaxed when they spoke, and if it helped her to remain so, perhaps it was one of his better ideas.

“Does it bother you? That people call you funny,” he asked, his voice lowering to a whisper as his fingers played with the sweet skin of her thighs up to her hips, and he smiled at her desire loosening her limbs and warming her through.

“Sometimes. But I suppose if I hadn’t been fun-ah-funny,” she huffed when he tickled beneath her breast, and kept his smug grin to himself to give her the chance to finish while he continued to explore and play with her skin. “If I hadn’t been funny, I would never have ended up where I am.”

Something tightened in the pit of his stomach, and he kept his growl at bay. If she hadn’t been where she was, if it hadn’t been for him, none of this would have ever happened.

“Sold to the Dark One?”

Belle caught his hand, because he was intent on stroking her hair as much to soothe her as himself and led his touch down past her breasts and belly and beneath his leather where his mouth watered and he felt hot and cold at the same time. She lifted her eyes to him, clearly the winner of their banter, and affirmed, “Making my own choices.”

To feel her, to feel her honesty and her desire all but broke him, and he squeezed her fingers, biting on his moaning of her name. Her eyes brightened at her name on his lips, and the frenzied thought of Belle in the midst of passion, calling out his own name was what led him to finally touching her. He smiled at her gasps, small, breathless things as he felt her and pleased her with his fingers.

“R-Rum-”

The sweet attempt was enough to make him see double, but he had to know what she sounded like-had to hear his name, the whole of it. With a sweeping kiss to her lips, he drew one fingers into her and perhaps she did try to call out his name, but he drank it down in their kiss as he touched and stroked and let her chase a leaping, bounding joy that was shaking her from the inside out. She scratched his arms and had him nearly trapped between her legs, but he pressed his forehead to hers and eased her into breaking, not realizing she would shatter so violently, so beautifully. It had him hard enough to hurt, her rubbing against him and his hand, but when she calmed enough to fall limp against the pillows, he knew he could take her without hurting her too much. It would be best, he hoped, to do it while she was still glowing and revelling in her own pleasure, and he slid his trousers down and cradled her legs, feeling the stickiness of his hand on her thigh while he eased himself inside her. She was touching his back and his hair as if he were the one who needed comfort, but she gasped when he closed the space between them and he went still, too afraid to move.

Belle was as tight as a bowstring, and he could but feel it all, knotted in her back. He slid his hands beneath her hips and moved his fingers where her tension lay, peppering her shoulder and neck with stray kisses until she finally relaxed once more, enough for him to give a gentle push and close the rest of the distance.

“Oh!” Belle gasped softly, but not unhappily.

Heart twisting and heavy in his chest, Rumpelstiltskin drew enough breath to ask, “Does it hurt?” The thought alone was mortifying and sickening enough to have him put his hands flat against the bed beneath her, ready to shove himself away.

“No.”

When he looked up at her face to see her smiling, to watch as she adjusted herself enough to cradle him more comfortably, they both groaned, and he bit his lip, watching her face warm with a rosy blush he’d missed. Belle’s eyes widened a bit before she reached up and drew the cursed crown from her hair, the veil following like it was spun from a spider’s web. Rumpelstiltskin’s heart settled somewhere high beneath his throat, and he helped her extricate it. The gentle and healthy fullness to her face seemed to come back, and he was ready to toss it away before she took it from him. With a question in his eyes, she smiled and pulled him closer by her knees, whispering into his shoulder, “Keep going.”

Closing his eyes, Rumpelstiltskin dropped his face down beside Belle’s and began to move. It was awkward at first, though Belle felt like heaven, warm and soft and sweet. Neither of them could seem to agree on the rhythm or the angle until he leaned down enough to kiss her. They paused to savor each other’s taste, and he could feel the crown she still held in her hand pressing into his back. It was her other hand, tangling into his hair like he was her lifeline that spurred his body on, and what hadn’t made sense before was like the fluid magic of a spell being cast, an aching, wondrous pleasure building with quickening thrusts and panting breaths that made him grasp the slippery headboard and Belle’s beautiful hair.

“Rumple- _stilt_ -skin!” Belle screamed, practically choking on his name when her pleasure seemed to wash over her, her accent thicker than he’d ever heard it, and he made a noise that would’ve probably frightened her any other time, but he’d never felt so alive. Centuries of just existing, but he finally felt as though he were living again. He felt her thighs spasm around him, and he took her pleasure in the moment to find his own, selfishly, fucking her into the pillows before gasping raggedly a muffled whimper of her own name, pouring himself into her weakly until she grappled for him to rest above her. She claimed his lips, a clumsy, sweaty meeting of lips catching hair, but it gave him enough determination to roll them to the side.

When Belle’s head fell back to his chest, her eyes were closed, and she didn’t seem to realize that she let go of the cursed crown, letting it slip off the bed with a heavy, quiet drop, to tangle her fingers with his.

In panting relief, Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes, and without hindrance of a veil, kissed his wife’s hair.


End file.
